This Summer I read “The Puma Years”
Visit our post and find out more about this book and its author!
Last Monday, the 30th of August was International Puma Day. This celebration has been created to bring attention to the importance of the conservation of this species, whose habitat stretches from Alaska to Patagonia.
The Puma Years, A Memoir, is a non-fiction book, as its name announces, written by Laura Coleman. This book was published this year and is the first by the author. She is also the founder of ONCA, a Brighton (UK) based arts charity that bridges social and environmental justice issues with creativity, and she lives by the sea on the Isle of Eigg in Scotland with a dog called Nelo.
In this book, Laura Coleman tells how a trip to Bolivia after quitting her job in the UK in her twenties, changed her life.
The story starts with her arrival to the Wild-life Sanctuary Ambue-Ari, dedicated to rescuing and looking after wild animals, victims of the pet trade black market.
The circumstances and challenges that she faced, were so ridiculously extreme that it's impossible not to laugh. Humor is one of the great qualities of the way Laura shares her story which allows us to go through the intensity of the experience in a vivid and enjoyable way. She found the perfect tension to keep us hooked from beginning to end in an emotional roller coaster going from her own inner transformation to the transformation of the jungle and the sanctuary, in a very sensitive and intimate way.
Above all this it is an amazing love story. The unlikely love story between a puma called Wayra, (which means wind or born of the wind, in Quechua), and a young woman, who knew nothing about pumas nor what she was capable of.
If you love animals you will love this book, if you love adventure, you will love this book. If you would rather stay at home but you always wanted to know what it would be like to go far away and experience something seriously profound, you will love this book.
I invite you to meet Laura Coleman in this interview by Jessica Janson from the Mountain Lion Foundation made last 16th of August. Enjoy it!
